


like the stars

by writergirl8



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Celebrity, Drabble Collection, F/M, It's called the pack because I think I'm clever, Scott and Stiles are in a band, this has no plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-07-16 07:08:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7257589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writergirl8/pseuds/writergirl8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lydia Martin has been acting since she was a toddler. Stiles Stilinski, drummer for The Pack, has basically had a crush on her for just as long. When they meet through Allison, they spend years becoming closer as friends and eventually fall in love for real. </p><p>(A series of drabbles detailing their life together.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> This is a famous AU that I have mostly been posting on tumblr, but I thought I'd put it here in case anybody wanted to read it on AO3. The first several chapters will be in chronological order, but after they get together I will be drabbling in random order.

Lydia is used to these parties at this point. They’re filled with boring Hollywood types who are all looking to get something from each other— get something from her. She’s been acting since she was in diapers, and the amount of people who she’s been forced to schmooze at these parties is exhausting and ridiculous. 

 

Luckily, Lydia is excellent at it. So when Allison had invited her to a Christmas party at her family home, she’d readily agreed, if only to spend more time with her best friend. After all, Allison’s mother is a producer, and her father is a powerful director who works for his own father’s production company. 

 

Allison’s had a mostly normal life, aside from filming, which is where Lydia had met her. She goes to high school in a small, sleepy town called Beacon Hills and films the occasional teen movie so that she has extra money for clothes. Luckily for both of them, they’d met when Lydia was on hiatus for her show and had gotten hired for an adaptation of a YA novel. The two of them had just finished filming the sequel to the first movie they did together. They’d gotten close on the first film, and after the second one, they’ve basically become inseparable.

 

Inseparable, except for when Allison is spending time with her boyfriend. 

 

Lydia’s met Scott before. He’s a sweet kid, and he hadn’t been too starstruck when she’d met him. After an hour of walking around on thick carpets and smiling at older gentlemen with too much money, all of whom want to capitalize on the fame of her television show that has stretched out for almost a decade, all Lydia wants to do is chat with someone who doesn’t want anything from her. So when she spots Scott in the corner, she heads over fto him without thinking, a smile on her face.  

 

“Hi, Scott,” she says brightly, kissing him on the cheek in the standard “hollywood schmooze” greeting.

 

“Hey!” he greets happily. “Merry Christmas.” 

 

“Thank you,” Lydia says, sweeping her eyes around the room in an attempt to locate Allison. 

 

Only then does she see the boy standing next to Scott, with pink, bitten at lips and a horrible buzzcut. His cheeks are  _ flaming  _ red, his wide brown eyes trained on her face. 

 

Whatever. Lydia’s used to this. She talks to Scott about the selection of horderves. Ignores the other guy. 

 

(The boy won’t let her ignore him.) 

 

“Hi,” he says, cutting Scott off mid sentence. “I’m Stiles.” 

 

“Lydia,” she says, not bothering with a last name because everybody knows who she is. Lydia Martin is America’s sweetheart. She is a household name. She has been gracing people’s television screens since she was a toddler, on her show since she was eight years old, and now she’s seventeen and the show is on its last season so that she can finally go to college and live her life and get the degree in mathematics that she  _ wants _ . More than anything. More than fame. 

 

She expects him to look away after she’s introduced. He doesn’t. Lydia sighs. Turns back to Scott. “So, how’s it going with your band?” 

 

His smile gets bigger, starting to get excited, but Stiles cuts her off. “I had a poster of you in my bedroom when I was thirteen.” 

 

Oh lovely. 

 

“That’s… nice.” 

 

He nods once, his face bright red. Then he turns to Scott with a look of shock on his face. Scott chuckles nervously. “Stiles is in the band too,” he says. “He, um, plays drums. And plays piano, when we need him to. And he writes some songs, but they’re cheesy.” The last part is meant to tease Stiles and put him at ease, but his ears turn red now and his eyes are on the floor. 

 

“I don’t have the poster in my room anymore,” he says to his shoes. “Cuz... that would be weird.” 

 

“That’s… nice,” Lydia says again, uncertainly. 

 

“It’s definitely not in my closet,” Stiles mutters.

 

“If you’ll excuse me.” She cuts him off quickly. “I think Allison just waved me over.” (She had not.) Lydia says goodbye to Scott, then leaves the two of them behind and loses herself in the crowd of Hollywood elite. 

 

Later on that night, searching for Allison in the house, Lydia follows her voice to the downstairs bathroom. 

 

“It couldn’t have been that bad,” Allison is saying, her voice hopeful and amused simultaneously. 

 

“Oh no,” Scott argues. “It was pretty bad. I’m actually amazed he’s not worse.” 

 

“I’m standing right here!” complains Stiles. “And, yeah, I’m gonna have to go with Scott on this one. I told her I used to have a  _ poster _ of her in middle school. Why not just add in ‘hey, I used to think of you beating off.’”

 

“Was she beating off in this scenario, or were you beating off while you were thinking about her?”

 

“Both, obviously,” Stiles says. “Don’t ask stupid questions, Allison, there isn’t enough  _ time.”  _ Allison cracks up, which makes Lydia think that he’s probably joking. Then again, maybe not. “I’m such a dumbass.” When he speaks, his voice is muffled by someone, and Lydia thinks that either Allison or Scott is giving him a hug. 

 

“So you don’t marry Lydia,” Allison says casually. “Big whoop. I’ll introduce you to one of the Olsen twins. You don’t have a massively humiliating crush on either of them.”

 

“That’s fair,” says Stiles. “And in the meantime, I’m gonna go make like a steak and marinate in self pity.”

Lydia isn’t expecting the bathroom door to open and for Stiles to walk out, then turn so that he’s face to face with her. He’s clearly not expecting that either, because he lets out a surprised yelp, his limbs flailing when he sees her. 

 

“I was looking for Allison,” says Lydia. 

 

“She’s in the bathroom with Scott,” Stiles replies. “That’s just how clingy they are.” 

 

There’s a ring of truth to it, so Lydia lets herself roll her eyes in agreement. 

 

“Oh the horror,” she says drily. He starts to walk away after a weak smile towards her. “And, Stiles?”

 

He turns his head to the side and stops walking. His nose is kind of cute from this angle. 

 

“Yeah?”

 

(She doesn’t know why she says this.) 

 

“The Olsen twins are bad news. I’d go for one of the lesser known Disney stars. They’re into freaky stuff, but in a good way.” 

 

He quirks a smile. “Thanks for the advice.”

 

“No problem,” she replies. “Enjoy your poster.” 

 


	2. Sunday Morning Love Song

The first time Lydia realizes that there’s a song about her, she’s sitting in an outdoor cafe next to the meathead she’s currently pretending to date so that the paps fuck out of her personal life, and she’s attempting to pretend to be interested in whatever he’s saying so that the paps will get their picture and make assumptions about whether or not they’re fucking. 

But this song comes on, and the voice of Scott is kind of familiar because he’s _always_  at the large, open house that Lydia and Allison share together, and he’s often got his acoustic guitar with him. 

Most of The Pack’s songs are more pop punk, but they have some acoustic pieces that are relatable and kind of get thrown onto the airways pretty frequently. This one, though, is one that she’s never heard before. 

She lets herself continue to nod pleasantly towards Landon as he keeps talking, but she focuses hard on the lyrics, because they’re way more interesting than whatever he’s saying. 

Except Scott sings this line “I didn’t want/didn’t want you to go/you sat there watchin’ three movies in a row/I watched the sun, watched it come up in your eyes/and that’s when I knew you’d never stop/you para _lyz_ e me” 

Now, Lydia knows for a fact that Stiles is not the most gifted lyricist of the group. They all right songs, and his are usually long and rambling and clunky. Isaac writes snobby poetry. Scott’s words are quietly thoughtful. And Stiles basically writes like he speaks, except he rhymes. 

She also knows of a night when she had been too lazy to go to bed and they had stayed up watching three Indiana Jones movies. Plus, there’s a _chemistry_ pun in the chorus. And, let’s face it, she knows Stiles has always had a crush on her. She just hadn’t really expected herself to show up in a song. It had never occurred to her. 

“Would you excuse me, Landon?” she asks sweetly, dropping a kiss on his cheek as she gets up and rushes to the girl’s bathroom. Allison’s number is her first speed dial, and Lydia presses her phone to her ear and wills her to pick up. 

“Hey,” says Allison. Lydia pounces, skipping pleasantries. 

“Sweetheart. Did you let your boyfriend’s sidekick write a song about me?” 

“Honestly, I’m surprised you didn’t figure it out before,” Allison says, sounding a little bored. “Which one? Unspoken Connection?” 

“ _Unspoken Connection is about me?”_  

“Oh… um… which were _you_ talking about?” 

“The one about me… paralyzing him.” She’s a little disbelieving even as she says it. 

“Oh, the new one. Catchy, right?” 

“Completely. No, wait, that is _not_ the point. How many songs are about me?” 

There’s a long pause. 

“I don’t know if you _want_ to know.” 

“Allison, are you joking?” 

“Okay, well, why don’t you list songs and I’ll tell you whether or not they’re about you?”

 Lydia considers. 

“When You Cry?” 

“You.”

“Sunday Morning Love Song?” 

“Me.” 

“Oh, nice, that’s really cute.” 

“I know, Scott’s such a sweetheart.”

“How about Scream Queen?” 

“Isaac wrote that one, it’s about a one night stand.” 

“Okay, well Stiles definitely wrote Fated. Who’s Fated about?” 

“Actually, that one’s about a cheeseburger.” Lydia breathes out. “I’m just kidding. You again.” 

She’s furious when Allison starts laughing. 

“Allison! It’s not _funny_.” 

“It’s a little funny.” 

“People are going to–” 

“What? Talk? Nobody’s figured out it was you before, Lydia, why is it bothering you now?”

That’s a really solid question. And one that Lydia really isn’t going to let herself entertain. 

“Tell him to stop writing songs about me.” 

“Why don’t you tell him?” suggests Allison. “I think that’ll go over well.” Lydia huffs into her phone. “Or, better yet, acknowledge the fact that you could be starting to have a crush on him, let him win a grammy for one of the songs, and then go as his date and make both of your dreams come true.” 

Lydia scoffs. 

“I don’t have a crush on Stiles. I will never have a crush on Stiles.” 

Allison sighs a long suffering sigh. 

“Okay, Lydia. Sure.” 

“I don’t!” 

“Bye, Lydia.” 

“WAIT, I really, really don’t have a crush on Stiles!” 

“And I believe you,” Allison says patiently. “See you at home!” 


	3. Friendship

Stiles creeps up on Lydia in the weirdest way possible. 

As in: Lydia doesn’t even realize she’s glad to be his friend until one day he’s standing on her couch, playing the chords to Video Killed The Radio star along with the track, hollering the lyrics into a hairbrush that Allison is holding up for him while Scott loses it laughing on the floor. And Stiles’ cheeks are flushed pink, his eyes bright and happy, and Lydia’s dropping her shopping bags on the floor so that she can cross her arms over her chest and just _watch_ because she knows that he’s bound to turn and see her any moment. She predicts that he will turn bright red, fall down, and then Allison will probably take over for him.

Stiles sees Lydia. Turns red. Falls down. Allison takes over. And Lydia, shaking her head, walks over to the couch to sit next to Stiles. 

He looks at her like she’s dazzling as she sits down, that same beam on his lips as she leans in to shout in his ear over the music. 

“What are you guys doing?”

“I challenged Scott to a lip sync battle,” Stiles yells back. “Cuz he’s actually going to be on lip sync battle.” 

“And he’s going to bring you with him?” Lydia asks rhetorically, because yes, of course Scott is bringing Stiles. They go everywhere together. They’re attached at the hip. They go to the _bathroom_  together, for the love of god. 

Stiles shrugs. 

“If he’ll have me.” 

Allison is now offering the hairbrush to Scott, who grabs it and begins wailing the lyrics into it. Lydia has never seen anyone make Video Killed the Radio Star seem quite so adorable. 

“You want a drink?” she asks Stiles, because from the way Allison is staring admiringly at Scott, she has a feeling they’re going to want alone time in about two seconds, and Lydia doesn’t feel like being in the middle of that. 

He nods, gets up, and follows her into the kitchen, hopping up on the counter until she glares at him and he slides down, plopping into a chair. 

“How was your day?” Stiles asks. She pointedly stares towards the bottle of vodka she’s attempting to reach. 

“Not fantastic.”

“Oh, here,” Stiles says, leaping out of his chair– it almost clatters to the floor– and reaching over Lydia to grab the bottle. He deposits it in front of her, then goes over to the fridge to grab the cranberry juice. 

Hmm. 

“I had a lunch meeting with my agent, who once again wants to use me to rehab the image of some of her other clients who haven’t made such fantastic choices.” 

Stiles squints. 

“Is that a real thing that they do?”

“Some of them,” Lydia admits, sitting across from him at the table and pushing one of the classes towards him. He takes a sip, humming happily around his vodka cranberry. “In some circumstances, it’s not so bad. But I hate dealing with all of the _questions_.” 

“Wait,” Stiles says. “You’ve done that before?”

“Once,” Lydia replies, starting to smile at the gobsmacked look on his face. “What?”

“Who _was_ it?”

“Danny.”

“Why?”

“Because, Stiles,” says Lydia, attempting not to smile. “He’s gay.” 

Stiles frowns. 

“How is my gaydar that off?”

“For a bisexual, you’re kind of terrible at the whole thing,” Lydia agrees. 

“I have to call Allison and get her to tell me if guys are hitting on me,” he sighs, shaking his head. “It’s a disaster, really.”

“Why don’t you just assume that they always are?” suggests Lydia. “And then flirt back?”

Stiles looks confused. 

“But what if they aren’t?”

“You’re a B-list celebrity. They probably are.” 

He still seems befuddled at this idea. Lydia lets him ponder as she takes another sip of her drink and checks her phone. 

“Aside from that, though, was everything okay with your business manager?”

Lydia looks up from her phone, a little surprised that he’s asking another question about her. It’s ridiculously easy to get Stiles off of any subject– his mind works oddly, and goes into strange tangents. But he’s just staring at her intently and waiting for her to answer with a content look on his face, like he has all the time in the world. 

Normally, she would wait until Allison was there to talk about this, but Stiles is right in front of her, seeming sweet and interested and it’s not like he doesn’t understand industry pressure or anything. The truth is, there have been multiple times in her life where she’s come home a mess, and Stiles and Scott have been vegging out on the couch, waiting for Allison to come home, and all Stiles has to do is take one look at Lydia and he knows what’s wrong and he knows what she needs. 

Even when she doesn’t ask him to be, he’s there. 

It’s sweet. And a little strange, because she can _never_ tell when he’s hurting. It never occurs to her to check in and make sure he’s okay. That’s his job to do for her. Which is selfish as _hell_ , and she’s got to stop it because he’s the type of guy who knows what kind of drink you want without having to ask and the type of guy who makes your best friend laugh so hard she _snorts_. And nobody makes Allison snort. Lydia hasn’t seen Allison snort since they saw Robin Williams live together. 

“I got an audition for a movie and I just… I’m not sure if I should go.” 

“Well, what is it?”

 “It’s with… well, let’s just say he’s a famous actor working with a famous director and this whole thing is really just a ploy to get him an Oscar.” 

“Sure.” 

“I mean, after the show ended I did some indie stuff while I was in college, but this just… isn’t my level.” 

“That sounds pretty fake,” Stiles comments. “Everything is your level, Lydia. What’s the real reason?”

She kicks him under the table. 

“That _is_  the real reason, you dillweed.” 

“Ow,” Stiles replies bluntly, massaging his shin. “Seriously, Lydia? You’ve been wanting to get into uppity shit for years now. What’s with the random freak out?”

“It changes your life a lot. I mean, of course it’s more money, and more opportunities… and then there’s always the option of failure–”

“But there’s no option for failure,” he responds. “You’re not going to fail. There’s no chance.” 

“It’s Hollywood.”

“And you’re already a household name.”

“But not for this. Not with this, Stiles.”

“Stop psyching yourself out and take the audition. You can _do_ this. You know you’re this good.” She stares at him. He stares back. Lydia, to the surprise of neither of them, looks away first. 

“Sounds like the living room is empty,” she says to her fingers. “Any chance you’d be willing to test out your lip sync battle skills to Man I Feel Like A Woman?”

He’s out of his chair in two seconds flat, scurrying across the kitchen to get to the living room. Lydia follows, trying not to smile, and yes. Okay. 

She’s definitely glad they’re friends. 


	4. Poolside

The truth is, the whole thing that Lydia had been doing where she allowed herself to stew in her crush on Stiles until it either went away or got stronger had been going _excellently_ until he fucked it up. She’d been happy to hold it close to her chest and just _like_  him. It had felt soft and nice and a little bit terrifying, but in a way that was controllable because nobody knew about it except for Lydia. 

And then. 

And then Stiles had gone off and gotten himself a girlfriend, and everything had spiralled out of hand. Lydia suddenly hadn’t been able to manage her feelings for him at all. Which is why she’s sitting by herself beside the pool at the house Scott bought his mom– more like villa, really– and stewing in self-pity while the rest of her friends sit inside, laughing together. 

This was supposed to be a _nice_ weekend. The four of them had just happened to have free weekends that lined up perfectly, for the first time in forever, and Lydia had just wanted to spend time with her three favorite people. That ideal had not, in fact, included Malia and her perfect legs. 

It’s not that Lydia doesn’t _like_ Malia. She’s blunt in a funny way, she completely ignores the Hollywood image, and she doesn’t give a shit about the fact that Lydia and Allison are extremely famous. But when she had become the opening act for The Pack’s tour and had started sleeping with Stiles, she had also forced Lydia to come to a very unpleasant realization. Yes, she’s in love with one of her best friends. No, it’s not going away anytime soon. 

Which is honestly just exasperating, because as gorgeous as Lydia is, she’s relatively positive she can’t compete with Malia. If she wasn’t a singer– a weird alternative hipster pop folk rock singer. And yes, that’s the most concise way to define it– then Lydia would probably suggest she become a model. And it’s not _just_ about her being model-gorgeous. It’s something else. Something about the way Malia makes Stiles laugh, and the way she knew who he was right from the _start_. Lydia hadn’t. She hadn’t seen it until he had forced her walls down with kindness and sweet smiles and attentiveness. 

She didn’t deserve the way he used to look at her. She didn’t deserve it then, and she doesn’t now. 

“Uh, Lydia?”

She doesn’t need to turn around to recognize Stiles’ voice. 

“Hi.” 

The voice she uses is too airy, too late. It gives away the butterflies in her stomach, she thinks. She hates that one of her best friends gives her _butterflies_. 

“Why are you out here in the dark?”

Lydia frowns as Stiles sits down next to her, letting his bare feet slide into the water next to hers. For a moment, she doesn’t respond, instead taking in the way his pale face glows in the moonlight. Then he knocks his ankle against hers, and Lydia is startled into a response. 

“Why are you out here in the dark?” she retaliates. 

“Oh,” he says, looking surprised. “I started a song last night and I wanted to come out here and finish it.” 

Her eyes drift down to the notebook in his hands, a regular navy blue college composition notebook with some random doodles on the cover. When he opens it and starts flipping through the pages, Lydia sees his handwriting and feels a suddenly longing tugging at her stomach. He’s sitting right next to her and she misses him terribly. 

“It’s about Malia,” she says knowingly. 

Stiles looks taken aback. 

“It is?” he says. 

“I’m assuming,” Lydia corrects. 

His eyes watch her face very carefully. 

“I think you’re wrong.” 

“Do you _know_  if I’m wrong?”

Stiles looks away. 

“Okay. I know you’re wrong.” 

He’s silent for a few moments, pen scratching across paper. Lydia wonders if any of the things in the notebook are about her. 

“Do you want me to leave?” she whispers, hoping she’s not interrupting his process. His hand pauses over the paper before a small smile tugs the side of his lips, and he shakes his head before writing two more lines. 

“No,” he replies. “Stay.” 

“Can I read over your shoulder?”

“Oh, fuck no.” 

She laughs. 

“Okay.” 

They sit there in companionable silence for an hour. Occasionally, Stiles turns to Lydia and asks her a question, or to help him rhyme something. She becomes addicted to the flush of his cheeks and the spark in his eyes when a line catches at his stomach. 

Sometimes, he just glances up at her for a moment, sweeping his eyes over her face, before he looks back down at the paper. 

“Done,” says Stiles after a long time. He yawns and stretches. “What time is it?” 

“Ten,” replies Lydia. 

“D’ you think Scott’ll still be awake? I think I’m gonna force him to write the tune for this one.”

She laughs. 

“Partnership, huh?” 

“I do it for him sometimes!” he says defensively, but he’s laughing. 

When she hears the song the next day, it’s a complete accident. She’s walking from her bedroom to the bathroom to wash her face, and there’s a light strumming coming from the music room down the stairs, as well as a few errant chords being played on the piano. 

“What about, like, the bridge again right there?” Scott’s saying. “Just repeat it to give it more emphasis.” 

“Oh, yeah, good,” Stiles agrees, and there’s a moment where Lydia can hear both of them scratching at paper. “You wanna try it again?”

“I will if you remember to put the G there.” 

“Oh, shut up,” Stiles says, and there’s a clatter and then a laugh. Lydia thinks maybe he threw something at Scott. 

“Start from the first verse?” suggests Scott. 

Stiles nods. Begins playing a slow instrumental melody (Scott shouts a random “G!” and he grunts and changes the chord) before Scott begins to sin the words. 

“ ****I don’t want to see you/Alone by the water/I don’t want to see you/Getting farther and and farther/I don’t want to let/you go.” Scott pauses, still playing the chords on his guitar. “And then it goes into the second one?”

“Yep,” Stiles says, launching into the same chord progression. “I don’t want you/To live with your back turned/I don’t want you to know/That I feel like your touch burns/I don’t want to let/You know.” 

 “You do the chorus,” Scott says over the music. Stiles groans. 

“Noooo.” 

“it’s your song!” laughs Scott. 

“Fine.” He changes chords, speeding up slightly. “Hey, you’re looking lonely/I feel like that too/Hey, I always thought I could be less lonely with you/Hey, it’s been a while/Since the last time I saw you laugh. Hey, you seem lonely/Up there in your head/Hey, I always thought/There was too much unsaid/Hey, it’s been a while/Since the last time I made you laugh. And you’re already whole, But I could be your other half.” 

They both stop playing and are silent for a few moments. Scott clears his throat. 

“You okay, buddy?” 

“You’re the one who has to sing this one,” Stiles points out. “Do you like it?”

“Tell her.” 

Lydia’s stomach clenches. 

“Oh, that’s _hilarious_.” 

“You’re just going to keep on distracting yourself from this? For how long?”

She doesn’t even need to see Stiles’ face to know that it’s grim when he says, “As long as it takes.” 


	5. For Now

“Would you stop fidgeting?” 

Lydia is smiling brightly at a plethora of cameras as they flash in her face, speaking through her teeth. Her hand slides around his arm, tightening to focus him, and Stiles pulls his hand away from the tie that he has been fiddling with, coughing a little bit as Lydia nudges him in the side, trying to get him to smile. 

“Sorry,” he says. “I hate this tie.”

“I didn’t pick it out for you because it would make you _comfortable_ , I picked it out so that you wouldn’t look like a neanderthal.” 

Honestly. Bringing him as her friend-date to this premier just to prove to Allison that she doesn’t want him to be Lydia’s real-date is hard enough as it is, but if Stiles keeps glancing down at her when she talks to him, there’s going to be rumors online tomorrow that they’re fucking. Which is all Lydia needs to start thinking about whether or not they should fuck. And whether Stiles would even _want_ to, at this point. 

(She tries very hard not to think about the song lyrics he’s written about her that she continues to pretend she doesn’t know about.) 

“You’re wrong,” he says, still uncomfortably smiling. “I was planning on wearing a flannel to this thing. I would have looked _great_.” 

“How could I have deprived the world of that?” asks Lydia rhetorically.

“It’s selfish, is what it is.”

“Maybe selfish is you refusing to go to Allison’s movie premier unless you had a date.” 

“Yeah, I’ll fully admit to that one. But, seriously, have you ever actually done one of these red carpets by yourself?”

They part, then walk a little bit further down the carpet together, stopping where a PA tells them to. 

“I have,” Lydia says, reassuming position. This time, Stiles’ hand is lower on her body. She wonders if he’s noticed that her dress has an open back. Her arm has erupted into gooseflesh, and she thinks that maybe his cheeks are a bit redder than usual, but he’s looking into the camera determinedly. “I’ve been doing this since before you were born, if you’ll remember.” 

“What?” he splutters. “I’m a _month_ younger than you and you literally never let me forget it.” 

“With age comes wisdom,” says Lydia happily. 

“Uh, no, your wisdom comes from your fifteen billion gazillion dollar degree from MIT.” 

Lydia’s smile for the camera widens as more flashbulbs go off in her eyes. 

“I think you may have overestimated the price of my alma mater just a _little_  bit.” 

“Huh. How off was I?”

She starts to smile, and he cracks up too, and when they both turn back to the paparazzi, their smiles are genuine. 

* * *

It shouldn’t really be surprising that it’s a problem the next day. 

“Goooood mooorrrnnniinng!” sings Allison, bursting into Lydia’s bedroom. As her roommate opens the blinds, Lydia slams a pillow over her voice and groans. 

“What the fuck?” she asks. “This is why I need to move out.” 

“You’re not moving out,” Allison says, sitting at the edge of her bed. 

“I am,” insists Lydia. “This is my two week’s notice.” 

“Nope,” responds Allison. “It’s not my fault you were up until 2:30am texting Stiles.” 

“I wasn’t texting him,” argues Lydia. “We were on Skype.” 

“Why, exactly, were you video calling Stiles after spending an entire evening with him?”

Lydia lowers her pillow and opens one eye to look at Allison’s smug face. 

“Um. We were in the middle of a round of the celebrity game and neither of us wanted to lose.” 

“Who won?” Allison asks, seemingly genuinely intrigued. Stiles spends more time on the couch, but Lydia has actually _met_ most of these people. 

“Neither,” admits Lydia. “We fell asleep.” 

To prove her point, she picks up her phone, where Stiles’ bedroom ceiling can be seen, the fan spinning lazily. His heavy breathing is clearly audible on the speaker. 

Allison bursts into laughter. Lydia ends the call. 

“I don’t mean to make this worse,” she says, trying to straighten her features. “But there’s a reason I woke you up.”

Lydia frowns. 

“What? Did Prada eat your earrings again?”

This time, it’s Allison’s turn to unlock her phone and hold it up for Lydia. On the screen is a picture of Lydia in her green dress and artfully curled ponytail from last night, laughing up at Stiles as he beams down at her, his eyes soft. 

She really, really should have seen this coming. 

“Are you going to say it out loud, or am I going to have to find out how you feel about him via text message?”

Allison’s eyes are far less amused than they had been a moment ago. 

“Okay,” Lydia says, her voice quiet. She looks up at her ceiling as she says, “Okay, so i think I may have fallen in love with Stiles.”

To Allison’s credit, she doesn’t freak out too much. Just lies next to Lydia on her bed, staring up at the ceiling with her. 

“Since when?”

“Since he went on those dates with Malia.” 

“Is that when you figured it out, or when it started?”

“Allison–” 

“You have to _tell_  him. You’re both going crazy.” 

“I like being friends with him.” 

“Scott is my best friend. Being in love with him didn’t ruin that. We didn’t let it.” 

“You started dating like two seconds into knowing each other!” 

“But we did break up for a while. And we stayed friends. And getting back together only strengthened it.” 

Lydia’s silent for several moments. 

“Allison,” she says eventually. “I hate this.” 

“I know,” Allison admits. 

“Distract me?”

There’s a heavy sigh, but at least Allison agrees. 

“For now,” she says. 


	6. Loving You Is Enough

“Do you ever get used to seeing Scott’s face on t-shirts?”

Allison lets out an amused snort as Lydia’s face contorts for the third time that night upon seeing Stiles’ face stretched out on a hoodie over a teenaged girl’s breasts. 

“I guess so,” she shrugs, calling it over the loud music that is playing over the speakers in the concert hall. It’s not very small, but it’s no Madison Square Garden either. Lydia doesn’t think The Pack will ever get quite that famous, but she thinks the boys like it this way. Live performances are one of their favorite parts of being a band. Being in venues like this allows for a feeling of intimacy even though they’re selling a lot of tickets.  

Allison and Lydia have never been able to be in the pit on the floor, dancing with the other concert-goers. Which is probably a good thing, Lydia thinks, because she doesn’t know exactly how she would dance to this music. She always tells Stiles that he isn’t hardcore enough to headbang, and even though she’s half teasing, if that’s the case for him then it’s definitely the case for her. 

Instead of dancing with most of the other attendees, Lydia and Allison get shoved into boxes with fans who paid more money to have seating and be separated from the sweaty, writhing crowd. Tonight, the box is mostly full of friends and family. Scott’s mom and Stiles’ dad sit next to each other, chatting quietly while Allison hunches over her phone. 

“What are you doing?” asks Lydia knowingly.

Allison looks up, blinking owlishly. 

“Texting Scott?”

“Isn’t he getting ready for his show?”

“I’m telling him that I love him,” Allison says. “Would you like to say something similar to Stiles, maybe?”

Lydia frowns, glancing back at the two parents in their box in the hope that they had been too distracted to hear. Upon confirmation that they had been, she looks back at Allison and _glares_.  

“Just because you know how I feel about him, doesn’t mean everybody else in the world should,” she hisses under her breath. 

“I can’t help it,” Allison says, shrugging and seeming very unconcerned. “I have this old fashioned belief where you _tell people_ you’re in love with them if you suspect they might reciprocate.” 

The urge to stamp her feet is way too strong as Lydia says, “But what if he doesn’t?”

“But what if he does?”

Her mouth goes dry at the thought. She thinks about yesterday, when she and Allison had arrived in Chicago and headed over to the rehearsal space, and Lydia had sat down next to Stiles at the piano while Allison and Scott caught up in the other room. She thinks about what it would be like if she had gotten to hold his left hand while his fingers on his right one pressed down on various notes. And she sucks in a breath at the idea of him taking his hands off of the keys and framing her face with them, cupping her cheeks and smoothing some hair away from her eyelashes before he leaned down to kiss her. 

“He just broke up with Malia,” she says instead of saying all that to Allison. Because Allison would definitely like it too much. 

The retort that Allison is about to make is lost as the lights shift, signalling the beginning of The Pack’s show, and Allison snaps her mouth shut, focusing her attention to the stage. 

Lydia has been going to these concerts for years. She remembers a time in college when The Pack had just started getting popular in dive bar settings, and Allison had dragged her to several of their concerts. It was dark, dirty, and dingy there, and nobody suspected to see a famous actress in the crowd, dancing to the music, so it was always reasonably anonymous. 

Plus, Stiles had always laid down his jacket on the sticky seats for her so that her clothes didn’t get gross. At the time, she had been tentatively accepting his friendship and still mostly wary of his crush on her. At the time, she never would have believed that she would fall in love with him.

Best laid plans, right? 

The boys pour out onto the stage and begin playing with the energy that they have always brought to music ever since those days in the dive bars, when the people screaming for them weren’t paying nearly as much money per ticket. 

But everything’s different now. Lydia’s been to these shows since she started to have feelings for Stiles, but she hasn’t attended since he and Malia started dating. It was too high risk back then, but the result had just been Lydia missing him so terribly strongly that she ended up realizing she was actually in love with him. 

So she hasn’t been to one of these since she realized that Stiles has become an irrevocable part of who she is, of her chemical makeup. Of what _hurts_. And she has a feeling that this concert is going to hurt more than anything. 

She can hear herself in the lyrics now. She can tell which songs Stiles wrote the lyrics for even when she’s never heard the song before. She can hear the evolution of him falling in love with her over the years, and it is jarring, in a way, because he has been doing this _forever_. If he’s spent all this time feeling for her what she is feeling for him now, she almost feels sorry for him. 

But she feels sorrier for herself, because it looks like he’s fallen out of love with her. And her heart had had the audacity to not care about that. She’d just fallen harder. 

Towards the end of the concert, the lights dim, and Isaac and Scott wheel a piano into the middle of the stage. 

“What’s this?” Lydia asks, frowning as Stiles takes a gulp from a water bottle and sits down at the piano. Allison smirks. 

“The fans were complaining that he didn’t sing enough, and that he was always tucked in the back behind the drum set, so Stiles made a deal that he’d do one acoustic song while Scott and Isaac have a break just as long as he could spend the rest of the concert in the back behind the drum and the piano.” 

“Oh, naturally,” Lydia comments, rolling her eyes. “What does he usually play?”

“Hey,” Stiles says into the mic. “Um, apparently you guys were complaining that I didn’t sing enough. So my manager is making me do this. So thanks. And also fuck you.” The crowd laughs. Lydia considers running. “I guess I’m gonna test out a new song on you guys. If that’s okay?” The crowd cheers loudly. Stiles chuckles into the mic slightly. “Ey. That’s more enthusiasm than Scott, Derek, and Isaac ever give me.” More laughter. Stiles starts playing a melody on the piano. “I hope you guys like this. If you don’t, clap anyways, because that’s the polite thing to do, damn it.” 

He gives himself a small intro, and Lydia can see him bracing himself to sing before he backs down and plays the opening one more time. 

“Here’s what I think/I think you’re a maybe/I think I’m an almost/I think we’re a might.” He looks up from the keys and at the audience. “Here’s what I think/I think there’s a part of me/That still wants to kiss you/That still wants to hold you/That still wants to _fight.”_

Lydia determinedly avoids Allison’s gaze. She stares at Stiles instead. She wonders if he knows where they are in the crowd– he isn’t looking anywhere near them. 

“Cuz I’ve been trying, trying, and trying to back down/And I’ve stopped hoping, hoping, and hoping you’ll come around/But at the end of the day, all I want is to see you when the going is rough/And I’ve come to learn through all this time that just loving you is enough.”

Tears prickle in her eyes. These words are so honest, she feels like it’s cheating. And there’s still a part of her that wonders if they’re for someone who isn’t her.

“Allison,” she whispers. 

“You’ve known him since we were seventeen,” says Allison quietly. “You _know_ who this is for.” 

“Okay,” murmurs Lydia, unable to take her eyes off of Stiles on the stage. For a moment, his eyes glance up towards the balcony, then shift quickly back down to the piano. “But maybe that’s the scariest part.”


	7. Wildest Dreams

She’s known Stiles for seven years, and he’s done a lot of shit in their life together, but bringing a _date_  to Lydia’s movie premier has to be just about the worst. 

“I tried to stop him,” Allison says has they step out of the limo. The fans are screaming loudly at both of them, but Lydia ignores it as she plasters a small smile on her face. 

“Allison, of course. It’s fine.” 

It’s not fine. She feels uncomfortable in her skin, and itchy with the need to tell Stiles. She’s exhausted from guarding it. She’s exhausted from pretending. 

“It’s a little difficult to convince someone to not bring a date to something when you can’t tell him why.” 

Lydia’s publicist is lurking in the corner, looking a little anxious, but Lydia holds a finger up at her patiently. 

“Allison, it’s fine.” There’s one moment where her mask breaks slightly. “How… how much does he like this girl, exactly?”

Allison just sighs and hugs Lydia tight, crushing her hair slightly as she does so. 

“You’re an idiot,” she whispers fondly before shoving Lydia at her publicist and waving goodbye. 

The interview line for more upscale premiers like this one are far better than the ones for the teen movies that Lydia did before college. She steps up to the first interviewer and flashes her a winning smile. 

“Hi!” chirps the interviewer. “Congratulations on the movie, it’s getting so many positive reviews.”

“Oh, thank you!” Lydia beams. “George is a great director. I hope he does more, honestly.” 

“Your performance, especially, is already gathering Oscar buzz.”

Lydia feels a nervous tingle somewhere in her stomach. She smoothes down the fabric of her silver dress and plasters on her best smile. 

“That’s incredibly sweet of you to say,” she replies. “I think the work just–” 

She is cut off by the sound of screaming from the fans who are clustered across the street. Lydia squints slightly, but is fully ready to ignore it, until she catches the name that a few of them are chanting. 

Stiles. 

They’re come in separate cars, and her first instinct is to turn around and see how good he looks in the tux she’d selected for him, because Stiles in a tux is a rare treat and a true blessing. But instead, she forces a smile and goes to finish her sentence. 

“Wow!” the interviewer says, cutting her off. “Sounds like someone big just arrived.” She squints. “Is that Stiles? Stilinski?” 

Lydia’s heart drops. 

“Um. Yes,” she replies, without needing to turn around. _Yes, and I’m in love with him, and my walls are built up way too high to tell him because I spend my life pretending, and I’m sick of it._

“The Pack has quite a following!” notes the interviewer. “Are you proud of their successes?” 

“Of course I am,” Lydia says, chest aching. “I’ve been friends with Scott and Stiles since we were all teenagers. Watching them move up in the world and have their dreams come true has been one of my favorite things about being in this town for all these years.” 

“And what do you have to say about the rumors that some of the songs are about you?”

Oh god. 

Lydia forces a casual laugh out of herself, feeling like this particular performance is probably worth an Oscar. Fuck the movie, this is her real legacy. 

“I think that would be a huge honor,” she says lightly. “But honestly, most of their songs are about Allison Argent. Scott’s been with her since they were sophomores in high school, and he does most of the song writing.” 

“Right, but the other members do too, correct?”

Lydia opens her mouth to answer, but is distracted by Stiles breaking _every_ single rule she’s ever taught him and sneaking up behind her, snagging her around the waist and dropping a kiss onto her cheek. 

“Hey, Lydia,” he says happily, offering the interviewer a shy smile. “You’re holding up the press line.” 

She laughs through her nose, then nudges him away from her with her elbow. 

“Oh, right, I’m the problem here.” 

He beams at the interviewer. 

“She’s _such_ a problem,” he says, before nodding at the woman and squeezing Lydia’s hip, then bounding away back towards his date. 

“I’m still training him,” Lydia says, trying to come off as less rattled than she feels. The interviewer laughs, and Lydia knows that she’s distracted through the rest of the process, but she can’t get her mind off of Stiles. 

She sleeps her way through the pictures and the rest of the press, then finds herself being shoved into a dark theater next to her mother, Allison, Scott, and, directly behind her, Stiles and his date. 

Lydia doesn’t like watching herself on screen anyways, so she gets out of her chair when she realizes that her sex scene is coming up and heads to the bathroom, hoping she isn’t disturbing anyone. 

The bright lights and marble sink are exactly what Lydia needs to distract herself from what’s going on outside. She knows that Stiles has seen her in several sex scenes over the years– some before she even knew him– but it’s different now. She feels like every time it happens, it gets worse and worse. Instead of thinking about it, Lydia expertly readjusts her makeup, breathing deeply to center herself. 

Once she feels that it’s been long enough, she exits the bathroom, meaning to make her way back to the dark theater. 

Instead, she stumbled right upon the person she was trying to avoid. 

“You’re okay,” he says, sounding relieved. “You were gone for a while,” he adds by way of explanation.  

“I know,” Lydia says softly. She starts to walk away. Then she stops. “What was that?” 

“What was what?” 

He’s right behind her when he speaks. Lydia turns around, feeling anger coursing through her. 

“Earlier. You just… came up to me in the press line. You have to know that was unprofessional.” 

“Yeah, I just… I saw you there and I haven’t seen you since you left for the press junket and we didn’t get to talk before when we met at your house for drinks, so I just… I missed you. I wanted to see you.” 

She looks up at him, suddenly unable to keep the sadness out of her eyes as she releases a long breath, studying his face. 

“You look good in the tux.” 

“Lydia, what’s wrong?”

The lobby is mostly empty, but she doesn’t want to do this here. She can’t do this here. 

“I know I should tell you,” she admits. “But I…”

His hand comes up to touch her cheek, gently tilting her face towards his as he stares seriously down into her eyes. 

“Is everything okay? Are you safe?”

“Yes,” she says gently, placing her hand on his heart to show her sincerity. The action registers in her eyes, and when she realizes the intimacy of the gesture, she detangles herself from him immediately. “How have you been liking the movie?”

“You’re amazing,” he says automatically, still looking confused as he frowns down at her. 

She’s suddenly feeling too tired to stay. To keep up appearances. To not tell him that she thinks about him when she needs to get lost in the character, when she needs to feel _real_ emotion instead of acting. He’s the way she loses control of herself. He has been for years now. 

“I’m going to call my car,” Lydia decides. “Enjoy the rest of the movie, okay?”

“Uh, sure?”

He seems to confused to say anything else. Lydia starts to walk, then turns around. 

“Stiles?”

“Yeah?”  
  
Lydia turns her head to the side so that he can hear her, but doesn’t turn around to face him.   
  
“How much do you like that girl?”

“I– _what_?”

What if she just _told_ him? How easy would it be? How simple? 

She walks briskly away from him instead, moving her fingers over her phone to text her driver, and starts to walk down the mostly empty red carpet because there isn’t anyone to guide her to the back entrance and she doesn’t know how to get out that way. 

It’s a little windier than it had been before, and Lydia’s frustrated, angry tears sting her eyes but don’t fall. She sets her jaw. And she continues to walk away from him. 

She’s halfway down the carpet when she hears Stiles calling out her name. 

“ _Lydia_! Lydia!” 

To be fair, she’s really good at running in heels. But she’s never been good at running away from Stiles. So Lydia stops and turns around, hoping he doesn’t see the stubborn way she’s holding her lower lip, willing it not to shake. 

“What?” she asks, sounding annoyed and fake, and Stiles stops running once he’s nearly in front of her, taking a few longer strides to reach her. 

“Lydia,” he pants. “What the _fuck_?” She waits patiently for him to catch his breath. “What the fuck was that about?”

She’d smile, but he can tell her real ones from the fake ones. 

“I’m tired,” she says simply. 

“No, not the leaving. I mean… why would you ask me about her?”

Her heart sinks into the pit of her stomach. She thinks maybe this is it. She thinks she might have to stop playing. 

“I asked because… because, Stiles, I am _sick_ of not knowing which songs are for me and which aren’t.”

He takes a step back, blinking rapidly as he shakes his head. 

“Lydia– what?”

“I know it’s partly my fault, because I never asked, but then you stopped… it stopped being _obvious_ , and I kept searching for meaning and telling myself that I was reading into them too much, but the point is… I want to know which songs are about me and which ones aren’t.” 

“Lydia,” he says helplessly. “They’re all about you.” Her heart stops, she thinks. “Every single damn song that I write is about _you_.” Lydia closes her eyes. “That’s why they come so easy.” 

“Oh,” she says, because she is suddenly overwhelmed with his words. With the lyrics that she knows he penned, and now she knows he wrote them for her. 

“Do… do you _want_ them to be?”

She opens her eyes. She nods. He blanches slightly, running a harried hand through his hair. 

“Oh my god.” 

“I know it took me too long to tell you, and I know you’re my best friend and my favorite person in the world, but if there’s any chance you still want m–” 

She’s cut off when he launches forward and kisses her feverishly, his mouth desperate and eager and slightly wild as he moves over hers. It draws a whimper from Lydia almost immediately, because _god_ , this is good, and it feels like his lyrics do– painfully, achingly honest, in a way that makes her heart hurt. 

This time, instead of backing away, she clings onto him harder. This time, instead of avoiding his eyes, she gives it all back. 


End file.
